I have been saying it forever, riot is way to fast to nerf new strategies without given people a chance to come up with counters.

I agree.

I think what Riot is doing is nerfing these certain comps and meta-alternatives because they are not predictable, and they want their community to be able to foresee what is coming their way (to some extent) when they see what comps they will be facing. Mainly, this would largely affect blink pick. You could run a 5-man premade blind and continually destroy teams with stronger, out-of-the-norm comps they would never see coming. Now, it is their fault for playing blind pick, and it likely wouldn't happen super often, but this would be the case.

While this is helpful, it does hinder counter-play creativity, which is a sad truth. As annoying as it would be, I wouldn't mind facing these comps if I could learn something from them. While it's not extremely uncommon, my friends and I would play TT with a jungler just like we would on SR, and we won...a lot. I'm talking over 15 games in a row before we finally lost a match. The dragon/buff control (not to mention the leveling advantage) was extremely powerful. It's things like this that can revolutionize gameplay.

To comment on support comps though, 5-man support comps can be extremely powerful as well. Again, another fun way to mix up the game.

I find it funny that both this and "Riot designs for the meta" are taken as true, when they are fairly contradictory. If Riot is designing for the meta, they're letting players sort out the meta and how to deal with the new meta-crusher champion (who just does the meta, but better. See Jayce, Rengar, Graves on his release, etc.) When they release a champion who doesn't fit the meta, well then people scream about how Riot doesn't make good champions because they don't fit the meta.

What you need to accept is that this meta is stale and broken, and people aren't going to figure out how to bust it because it is pretty much impossible to bust it due to design mistakes Riot has made. There are some options right now that are just so flat out superior to any alternatives that there is no reason to try to do anything else. They're hopefully fixing those design mistakes, which should open up the game significantly more. If Riot stopped making any changes at all for half a year and left it to players to sort the game out, all the players would do is figure out how to make it even more stale and boring.

Very nice and well written post. Actually it is right about all the things said. Riot is not letting the game evolve on it's own, players should be discovering new strategies and how to counter them. Aside from pro players like mentioned in the OP.

I guess they should learn from Blizzard in that regard, let the players discover your game. Nerfing into oblivion anything that seems OP in tournaments is not the answer IMHO.

Bump : Curious to see how long the asian meta will be viable, or if it will get nerfed via buffs to towers or something.

nerfs and buffs are necessary as new champs are introduced. Its not just the strategy players use.

My opinion is now split. I definitely agree with the OP, but I also agree with this man's post above.

I don't really think the problem is nerfing and buffing, or champion release. The problem is the player playing the game. I don't mean just the GD players who cry for nerfs when their precious Riven top gets butthurt by a Jayce or Rengar.

I'm talking about Pro players too. The root of all of this is definitely the "free-to-play" nature of the game. Since it is free, obviously the community will pick up a lot of the riff-raff in this world. I.E. immature players both young and old, who aren't happy unless they complain and rant.

You can relate the GD to the people who like to complain about the food they get at restaurants, a very small percentage of people actually do it, but they are always the ones "around the company."

That may seem unrelated, but my point is the people who come on here, typically feel so passionately about something (typically a complaint) they want to come to the "source" and rant.

Back to the original point though, the players who "play to win" make this game stagnant. And since Riot has clearly demonstrated they value the opinion of pro players on a higher level than the lower players, I.E. Morello's discussion with a plat player about Eve, they also build the strategies around the pro players to a higher extent than to everyone.

Since the pros do it, most people just "monkey see monkey do" and REFUSE to do anything different until the pros do something different. I can't tell you how many Gragas' I saw after the semi-finals of the recent PAX tourny. Or how the only ADC I EVER SEE now is graves, corki, ez.

The ONLY junglers I see are mumu, skarn, shyv, lee, ren.

The ONLY ap mids I see, morg, fizz, ahri, gragas, lux

The ONLY supports, ali, blitz, taric, leona

Top seems to be the only dynamic role.


I never see mao supports anymore, hardly see soraka, nunu jungles, jungle yi's tryn's, etc. Does anyone even remember the last time they saw urgot in solo Q? Ashe? Cait?

Sure, once in a while yeah, you see them. But the game has over 100 champions, but you only ever see around 15 played consistently. It's boring, to the point where if someone picked an Urgot adc bot lane, I would probably get raped since I have seen Ez SO much now, that I know the CDs for all of his spells and his E....it's insane.

Players just need to accept this meta is stale, and that we need to start looking for other methods.



It's just like when Halo went MLG, for any players who were competitive in that, the map "setups" were boiled down SO HARD, that every team did the same thing...all the time. There was a setup for an area of the map, followed by a counter setup.

Every game was the same **** where you could predict a player's movement throughout the entire game. Eventually no one will need to ward in this game. They will know exactly what a jungle Lee will do, and compensate.

I would love to see two bruisers bot, two junglers, or a lulu support with an ap soraka bot, or a double mid, or a team rush mid. SOMETHING.

It's gotten to the point where I can't even pick an unusual support without people *****ing. Personally, I have no problem with panth support. He has a stun. To me, that's all you really need to get a good ADC fed. And he can harass very well and block moves.

Why don't we see more panth bots against Ez? You can block Q. Idk.

I just want to see some flexibility within the meta first, then branch off to changing strategies, or at least countering strategies.

bump

bumpppp

There was another post a handful of months ago on this very subject. Basically stating that riots nerf hand is to strong and it effects the game by stifling player creativity and innovation. Annnnnd it was buried. Riot doesn't give a **** is basically what I am saying. Good luck with the crusade though, you have my support.